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According to a report by bipartisan commission, there can be nuclear or biological weapons attack by the terrorists on the United States before 2013. The commission considers that biological weapons can be easily obtained and used before nuclear weapons because there is careful security for the nuclear facilities (Fox News, 2008). Civilian laboratories could be easily compromised, which contains plenty of dangerous pathogens.

The report states that the threat of biological weapons attack is greater than the threat of nuclear weapons attack because getting the deadly pathogens, their weaponization and spreading in aerosol form involves few technical difficulties than the theft or manufacturing of weapons grade plutonium or uranium and its assembly into a nuclear weapon. The biological attack consequences will be beyond the understanding. It would be ten times or hundred times of September 11 attack in terms of number of people who would be killed (Fox News, 2008). Biological weapons are easily available, like anthrax, which is a natural produce of dead animals. Other severe pathogens are also available in easy to get forms.

Many scientists know how to convert a pathogen from helpful purposes into illegal, harmful weapons. There is an example of flu virus that killed millions of people in the year 1918. That virus has been recreated in the scientific lab. If the virus is stolen and released by the scientists who knew how to utilize for violent purposes, there would be multiple times the forty million people who were killed hundred years ago (Fox News, 2008).The commission also warned on nuclear terrorism as many countries are developing nuclear weapons and some countries are expanding their nuclear weapon store. The terrorist attack threats using nuclear or biological weapons are growing not because positive things are not done against it but because opponents are moving at a faster rate to raise their access. According to the report, Al Qaeda is the only terrorist group that can conduct a nuclear attack on United State. Yet, it is not proficient of building such nuclear weapon. But, if Al Qaeda recruits a nuclear weapons scientist or engineer, then it can build such weapons. According to the major U.S. intelligence agencies, there will be a terrorist attack in the coming months on the United States. The U.S intelligence said that the top threat of attacks is from Al Qaeda, but there is also an increasing cyber security threat.According to the report, Al Qaeda is adapting techniques to create their plans harder to discover, changing from huge attacks with multiple players to using persons without any backdrop of terrorism (CNN, 2010).

The congressionally appointed commission also said that more than 8 years after the deadly anthrax attacks in 2001, the United States is still not ready to act in response to the large scale bioterrorism attack.The report gave F grades for White House and Congress for not developing a fast-response potential for dealing with disease occurrences from bioterrorism, or providing ample oversight of intelligence and security agencies, after measuring the performance of government in 17 main areas. The Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) panel cited the uncertain response of government to the swine flu outbreak as proof of a lack of attentiveness for a large scale crisis. It also said the responsibility for the failures is shared by different government administrations and branches.The report said that the last three administrations were very slow to recognize and respond to the threat of bioterrorism. As Al Qaeda is interested in bio-weapons, there is no much time for recognizing and responding slowly. H1N1 swine flu came with months of caution. But, even with time to plan, the outbreak peaked prior to most American people had access to vaccine. A bioterrorism attack will come with no such caution. Reaction is composite series of links in a sequence of resilience to guard the United States from bioterrorism attacks (Graham  Talent, 2010).

Fast discovery and diagnosis capabilities are the primary links then comes giving actionable information to local, state, federal leaders and general public having sufficient medical countermeasures supplies, rapidly issuing those countermeasures isolating and giving treatment to the sick and caring the well though vaccines and prophylactic medicines. The report said that all the links are weak and need the maximum priority of awareness from the Administration and Congress. It is also believed that lack of attentiveness and a constant lack of action, even on basic issues like investment in medical countermeasures is an indication of failure of the United States government to grab the biological weapons threat.The Administration has established an intense understanding of the nuclear weapon threat and placed a series of policies that all are expected to succeed, but there is no equivalent sense of necessity demonstrated towards the danger of a great scale attack of biological weapons (Graham  Talent, 2010).The greatest resources of country remains well informed, engaged and organized citizens.

The federal government has made some development in supporting the progress of awareness and flexibility of local and state governments, individual citizens, and business communities and non-profit communities. Development of checklists needs to be expanded, which citizens can utilize to make sure the willingness of their local governments, for making sure that all the citizens and communities are ready in the occurrence of a WMD attack (Graham  Talent, 2010).